Kill Anything that Moves is a new book by Nick Turse that uncovers the reality of American brutality during the Vietnam war. There were countless My-Lai type massacres. Here he writes about the legacy of that war and its relevance to (virtual) media silence over the human cost of US-led wars since 9/11: Leaving aside…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
The Western war to assist brutality against the Shia
With the current Western war in Mali (in simple terms, blowback from our intervention in Libya), who and what exactly is the West supporting in the Muslim world? Patrick Cockburn writes in Counterpunch that hypocrisy is name of the game: It is a ferocious war waged by assassination, massacre, imprisonment and persecution that has killed…
Radio Live in New Zealand on heroin in Afghanistan
I was interviewed this morning on Radio Live in New Zealand on the massive drug issues in Afghanistan, something I witnessed first hand last year. From poppy fields to locals and foreigners using the drug, the West has largely ignored this in the last decade despite rhetoric telling us otherwise.
ABCTV News24’s The Drum on sexism, Syria and divestment
I appeared tonight on ABCTV News24’s The Drum (video here), alongside Rowan Dean and Jacqueline Maley, talking about a range of political issues. I argued that it was legitimate for pension funds to divest from organisations or companies that go against people’s morality such as big tobacco, the thuggish Murdoch empire or fossil fuels (quoting…
What the poppy trade has done to Afghanistan
During my time in Afghanistan last year I spent time with opium addicts on the outskirts of Kabul. It was a brief insight into the massive drug problems facing the country. This new book, Poppy – Trails of Afghan Heroin, looks fascinating:
Rise of Sunnis in the Middle East and the decline of Iran in 2013
Juan Cole offers some predictions: 2013 will see Iranian influence in the Middle East continue a decline that began with the Arab upheavals of 2011. Iran’s two major allies in the Arab world are Syria and Lebanon. In Lebanon, Iran arms the Shiite party-militia Hizbullah, and does so overland through Iraq and Syria. Since Israel…
America’s wars are outsourced so there’s much money to be made
The face of America’s never-ending “war on terror” is increasingly privatised. This Washington Post article explains just one example of this trend but doesn’t examine the lack of accountability of the practice, something I’m doing in my 2013 book and film on disaster capitalism: The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed…
The trauma suffered by an American drone operator
The life of an American drone pilot is rarely examined. This story in Der Spiegel… reveals the human cost of America’s supposedly clean war (oh, apart from the countless civilians murdered): A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit…
In conversation with evocative photographer Teru Kuwayama
Australian clothing brand Saxony recently invited American photographer… Teru Kuwayama to Australia. He’s spent much of the last decade documenting life and war in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir: I spent time with Kuwayama in Sydney and he is a humane man who has seen the reality of catastrophic Western policies in countries that need more than…